Dhandeeswarar

Vedasreni Sri Dhandeeswarar

This wonderful temple is located in Velachery, Chennai on the way from Saidapet towards Pallikaranai.

Dhandeeswaram Temple

The Dhandeeswaram Temple in Velachery is a historical site of note, which has inscriptions believed to be made by a great king from the Chola Dynasty in the 11th century. Velachery was known as Vedashreni (meaning “Abode of Vedas”) during the Chola period. This information is available in many of the tablets in Dhandesswaram temple.

Story of the temple

Dhandam refers to the weapon used by the lord Yamah. When Lord Yamah, threw the rope on Markandeyah to take his life, Markendeyan held on to a shivalingam (Lord Shiva). So the rope actually fell on Lord Shiva himself, which angered the God and He destroyed the weapon (Dhandam). Later on, Lord Yamah, did penance and got back his Dhandam, from the tank(Kulam) in the Dhandeeswaram Temple. As the “Dhandam” was given back by Lord Shiva, He is called as “Dhandeeswarar”.

LegendDuring Threthayugam, an Asura by name Somugasura stole away all the 4 Vedas and kept them under his custody, for which Lord Vishnu took Matsyavatar and killed the demon and retrieved the Vedas and handed them over to Brahma.

As the Vedas were under the Asura’s custody, there were caught by Asura Dhosha. As per Brahma’s advice all 4 Vedas came to this Kshethra, installed the Murthy of Lord Shiva and worshipped Him.

As 4 Vedas worshipped here the place here came to be known as Vedasreni, which is today’s Velachery. It is also beleived that, as these Vedas and many other sages performed Yagnas (Velvi in Tamil) here, the place got it’s name as Velvichery which turned out to be Velachery today.